Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 503

A fat lot of fine literary wording about a seminar

A faculty member at the University of Bristol alerts us to the multiple singular literary merits of this announcement of a coming event:

Obesity surgery and the management of excess: exploring the body multiple

25 April 2013, 4 pm — Canynge Hall, Room LG.08

Speaker: Professor Karen Throsby – Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick

Synopsis: Drawing on ethnographic data gathered through observations and interviews at a surgical weight management clinic in a large hospital, this article argues that while the core values governing the provision of obesity surgery (obesity = ill health; obesity surgery = weight loss; weight loss = improved health and cost savings) can be seen as governing the clinical encounter, the singularity of these collective equations reflects neither the complexity of the patient experience of obesity surgery nor the extent to which the ‘war on obesity’ itself does not adhere strictly to those principles. Drawing on Annemarie Mol’s concept of the body multiple, and focusing on three different forms of excess (excess weight, excess consumption and excess skin) that emerged in the course of the study, this article argues that the rationalised singularity of obesity that is enacted in the obesity surgery clinic risks obscuring the uncertainties inherent to those practices and the moral judgements and values that are ultimately inextricable from them.

BONUS: The speaker has published a paper that has a similar abstract

Modest evidence that Narcissistic CEOs are good for new technology

A press release presents modest evidence about the worth of narcissistic Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) [here is an auto-translated version of the original German text]:

The more narcissistic one CEO, the higher his willingness in his or her company to introduce new technologies – especially if these innovations are perceived by the public as “beneficial”, but risky. This context, researchers from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) have provided evidence in conjunction with the IMD in Lausanne and conducted at Pennsylvania State University study. Their findings will be published shortly in the prestigious journal Administrative Science Quarterly.

The new study is called “”CEO Narcissism, Audience Engagement, and Organizational Adoption of Technological Discontinuities”. The team has at least one prior published study on the topic:

“CEO narcissism and incumbent response to technological discontinuities,” Wolf-Christian Gerstner, Andreas Koenig [pictured h, Albrecht Enders, and Donald C. Hambrick, Academy of Management Proceedings, vol. 2011, no. 1, pp. 1-6.  The authors explain:

“we hypothesize that, due to their supreme confidence and craving for attention, narcissistic CEOs propel early and aggressive adoption of technological discontinuities by established companies…. We find strong support when testing our hypotheses on a sample of 78 CEOs of 33 major pharmaceutical firms, examining their response to the emergence of biotechnology over the period 1980 to 2008. In contrast to the typically negative portrayal of the narcissistic personality syndrome, our results suggest that narcissism may be a key ingredient in overcoming organizational inertia.”

(Thanks to investigator Imke Fries for bringing this to our attention.)

Three Coins in a Fountain, and Some Salty Finger Problems

We are, all of us, in a certain sense enjoying a steady flow of research reports about fluids. Here are two of the newest items:

“Three coins in a fountain ,” H. K. Moffatt,  Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 720 , April 2013, pp 1 – 4. [doi: 10.1017/jfm.2013.55] (Thanks to investigator Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.) The author, at the University of Cambridge, writes:

“If, in a large expanse of fluid such as air or water, an object that is heavier than the fluid displaced is released from rest, it descends in a manner that can depend in a complex way on its geometry and density (relative to that of the fluid), and on the fluid viscosity, which, as in other fluid contexts, remains important no matter how small this viscosity may be. A major numerical attack on this problem for the case in which the object is a thin circular disc is presented by Auguste, Magnaudet Fabre (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 719, 2013, pp. 388–405).”

and

“Finger puzzles,” R. W. Schmitt, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Volume 692, February 2012, pp 1-4. The author, at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, reports:

“Salt fingers are a form of double-diffusive convection that can occur in a wide variety of fluid systems, ranging from stellar interiors and oceans to magma chambers. Their amplitude has long been difficult to quantify, and a variety of mechanisms have been proposed. Radko & Smith (J. Fluid Mech., this issue, vol. 692, 2012, pp. 5–27) have developed a new theory that balances the basic growth rate with that of secondary instabilities that act on the finite amplitude fingers. Their approach promises a way forward for computationally challenging systems with vastly different scales of decay for momentum, heat and dissolved substances.”

Kees Moeliker: How a dead duck changed my life

Ig Nobel Prize winner Kees Moeliker’s TED talk is now online. The people at TED chose to debut it on April 1:

Kees was awarded the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize for biology, for documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck. [REFERENCE: "The First Case of Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae)" C.W. Moeliker, Deinsea, vol. 8, 2001, pp. 243-7.]

In the talk he mentions several other Ig Nobel Prize winners. Details about their work appears on the Ig Nobel Prize winners web page.

BONUS: Amanda Palmer, who has played stirring roles in several Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies, also gave a TED talk this year.

BONUS: On the TED blog, Brooke Borel talks about their favorite Ig winners

Burns, Burns, Burns, and Burns on Fires

Burns can tell you a lot about fires. Some examples:

“Use of Copper Powder Extinguishers on Lithium Fires,”

by R. Burns, et al., 1994

“The application of CFD to the modelling of fires in complex geometries,”

A.D. Burns, et al, 1992

“Hotel Fires Safety Tips,”

A.C. Burns, 1981

“Building fire protection system and method for extinguishing airplane fuel fires” [patent], Scott Burns, 2004

BONUS: Nominative determinism

BONUS: “Fires of 2003 — Northwest Area Command gets a Surprise visit from Conrad Burns, US Senator“

Dr. Fish, Dr. Watts and their cetacean tubercules

“Major discoveries always come with a story: Newton had his apple, Archimedes had his bath tub, and Dr. Frank E. Fish, while shopping for a gift, examined a sculpture of a humpback whale in a shop and issued a fatefully inaccurate observation: ‘Look at that. The sculptor put the bumps on the wrong side of the flipper.’ “

Continuing thoughts about the whales’ scalloped flukes led directly to a patent, which was granted back in Aug. 2002 to Dr. Frank E. Fish and Dr. Philip Watts for their ‘Scalloped Wing Leading Edge‘.  Experiments had shown that the bumpy front edges appreciably reduced hydrodynamic drag. (Our informed readers won’t jump to conclusions of Nominative Determinism [ND] , knowing of course that a whale is not a fish, but a mammal. But Dr. Fish does work with manta rays though the rays in question are robotic, not fish – as explained in a Westchester University press-release.)

Although there are as yet no production aircraft flying with the above design, Dr. Fish’s and Dr. Watts’ patent has resulted in a spinoff business called WhalePower which exploits the bumpy aerofoil technique in the leading edges of blades for wind turbines intended to generate electricity more efficiently. Perhaps a better candidate for ND, though martinets might point out that the Scottish inventor’s name had no trailing ‘S’ (that’s Watt, not Watts)

COMING SOON : Dr. Fish on swimming.

Advice: To chew or not to chew

It is not an absolute, inviolable rule that one should always chew one’s food. Whether or not this Time report is accurate, its advice at the end is basic and good:

A fishmonger in southern China found a live bomb inside one of his squid. The man — identified only as Mr. Huang by the Guangzhou Daily — said that while he was gutting the squid, his knife suddenly hit something metallic. That turned out to be a 3-lb. unexploded bomb….

Reporting the incident, the Guangzhou Daily reminded its readers to always call the police if they find explosives in their food.

(Thanks to investigator Geri Sullivan for bringing this to our attention.)

Once you have determined that your food does not contain explosives (in quantity and of kind that would likely explode when chewed), one is generally advised to chew one’s food.

This video shows a man named Paul Chek, who implores you to chew, an activity that, in his words, “imprints… the idea of who you are… into the food”. We do not know what Mr. Chek means by that; presumably he does:

 

Here, from a rather different source, is a medical report about chewing:

“Chips and rips: ‘’chew your food well‘”, George F. Longstreth, Jeffrey C. Buehler, Gordon C. Hunt, John J. Garvie, and Daniel S. Anderson, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy,vol.  65, no. 3 2007, p. 556. The authors write:

“Only 8 cases of esophageal trauma from normally ingested food are reported. We would like to share with your readers 4 additional patients that we have cared for….

” A 60-year-old man had substernal/epigastric pain, dysphagia, melena, hematemesis, and presyncope minutes after eating corn chips….

“A 38-year-old man developed substernal pain, dysphagia, and fever hours after eating taquitos….”

“A 53-year-old man developed epigastric pain immediately after forcefully swallowing an unchewed bite of taquito because it was so hot….

“A 38-year-old woman presented with 7 days of progressive substernal pain, dysphagia, and odynophagia that started immediately after she ate a toasted pita bread chip.”

BONUS: Hazards abound, even prior to the moment when chewing becomes an option. Example: this news report in The Guardian:

Essex school bans triangular flapjacks after injury

A school has banned triangular flapjacks after a pupil was injured by one. Dinner staff at Castle View school in Canvey Island, Essex, were told to cut the treat into squares or rectangles following the incident. It is understood that the triangular version was banned after one was thrown, hitting a boy in the face….

Newborns Spit Up. Some Do it More than Others.

This new study explains that some newborns spit up more than others do:

“Do Newborn Infants of Ethiopian Origin Spit Up More than Other Newborn Infants?” Vered Nir, Erez Nadir, Mulunesh Mekonen and Michael Feldman, Israeli Medical Association Journal, vol. 15, January 2013, pp. 9-12. The authors write:

“Infants of Ethiopian origin spit up more than the control newborn infants of non-Ethiopian origin, while other clinical parameters were similar. In the absence of other pathological signs, spitting up is a non-relevant clinical condition.”

(Thanks to investigator Yotam Shkedy for bringing this to our attention.)

mini-AIR March issue: Musical this and that underwater

The March issue of mini-AIR (our wee little monthly newsletter) just went out. You can read it online, too. Topics include:

Musical stuff underwater
Other musical stuff underwater
Details about upcoming shows in UK, US, Switzerland
More musical stuff underwater
and more

It also has info about upcoming events.

Mel [pictured here] says, “It’s swell.”

mini-AIR is the simplest way to keep informed about Improbable and Ig Nobel news and events. Just add yourself to the mini-AIR list, and mini-AIR will be emailed to you every month.

Austrian Trumpet Bubbles (study)

Christoph Reuter, Univ.-Prof. Dr. (of the Institut für Musikwissenschaft, Universität Wien, Austria) has not only investigated the Psychoacoustics of Chalkboard Squeaking, he’s also associated with a unique experiment which looked at ‘stabile Seifenblase am Schalltrichter der Trompete’  [trumpet with robust soap bubble at the bell] which is shown here in this video :

NOTE: Improbable has not yet been able to find any supporting information regarding the results-of and motives-for this experiment — any suggestions gratefully considered.